Ruhi Ayangil

Prof. Ruhi Ayangil is a Turkish music orchestra and chorus conductor, kanun player, composer, educator, and administrator. He graduated from the Istanbul University Faculty of Law in 1979. He studied kanun with Turhan Tezelli and Hüsnü Anıl, Turkish music theory with Necdet Varol, and choral meşk and repertoire with Dr. Teoman Önaldı at the İTMKD. During his university years he studied voice with İhsan Balkır at the Istanbul Municipal Conservatory and solfège and harmony with Duygu Ünal and Uğur Ünel. He later studied piano, harmony, and composition privately with Cemal Reşit Rey.

From 1973 to 1981 he trained the Boğaziçi University Chorus and conducted all of its concerts at home and abroad — the Netherlands (1975), the USSR (1976 and 1979), and Poland (1978). His decision to organize choir members by voice type, rather than by height, is recognized as a first in the history of Turkish music. At the same university he taught a comparative Turkish music theory course for four semesters (1979–1980).

From 1976 to 1986 he taught kanun at the Istanbul Turkish Music State Conservatory, today İTÜ-TMDK. Between 1976 and 1993 he conducted concerts at every International Istanbul Festival — with the Boğaziçi University Chorus and later with his own orchestra and chorus — programmes that, in repertoire and in performance alike, set an example for the modernization of Turkish music.

In 1980 he gave the first performance of the Concerto for Kanun by Ferid Alnar (1906–1978) by a soloist other than the composer, accompanied by the Istanbul State Symphony Orchestra. He repeated the work as soloist many times in İzmir, Ankara, Istanbul, Adana, Bursa, Athens, Bucharest, Oradea, and Konstanz, made radio recordings (Istanbul TRT, Athens ERT) and television recordings (Athens ERT, İzmir TRT), and produced its first lasting audio recording.

As a guest of the University of Manchester in 1993 and of the International Forum of Arts in 1994, he gave lecture-recitals in Manchester and London on the kanun and on the stages of Turkish music's development, illustrating them on the instrument. He repeated this series of concerts and lectures in Berlin in 1995, in Naples in 2000 with Rome's Università del Mediterraneo, and at the University of Wisconsin–Madison in 2002. In 1997, 1998, and 1999 he took part as a kanun player and member of MEKÜSAV (Mevlânâ Culture and Art Foundation) in Mevlevî semâ ceremonies held in twenty-two US states as well as in London, Milan, Toronto, and Montreal. In the summer of 2003 he led a Mevlevî music workshop at the Spiritual Studies Institute in New York.

His recorded work since has ranged across concert repertoire, sponsored projects, and archival broadcast sessions, in which he has appeared as performer, composer, accompanist, and music director.

His academic career began in 1997, at the founding of the Yıldız Technical University (YTÜ) Faculty of Art and Design, where he served as Vice Dean, Programme Director of the Music Ensembles, and Chair of the Department of Music and Performing Arts. As a professor he taught kanun in the music programme and makam theory in the design programme at undergraduate level, and organology, religious music, bibliography, and art and law at graduate and proficiency-in-art level. He went on to serve as Dean of the YTÜ Faculty of Art and Design and as Chair of the Music Ensembles Division.

He took part in YTÜ's national and international research projects — CAHRISMA, ERATO, MEDI-MUSES, and a project to build a piano capable of playing Turkish music pitches — both as a project board member and as a project director. He was founding director of the YTÜ Vedat Kosal Music Research Center (2005), established the music department's sound recording studio, where he directed the "Beşibiryerde" production, and served as General Artistic Director of the YTÜ Republic Chorus, whose "Cumhuriyetin 75. Yılına Armağan" recordings and concerts he led. He retired from YTÜ in March 2011.

Ayangil has published writings and articles on music in various journals and newspapers, and composes in the makam-based Turkish music tradition. He continues his scholarly and artistic work as a faculty member of the İTÜ graduate and doctoral programme; a member of the Scientific Advisory Board of the CMO at Kaiser Wilhelm University (Münster, Germany); a faculty member at the Anadolu University, Eskişehir State Conservatory; an expert trainer on the MİM Sanat Akademisi SES-TACET Project; a founding member of the Turkish Music Academic Circle (TUMAC); and an independent concert performer. He reads Ottoman Turkish and the old notation systems, Hamparsum and ebced, fluently, and knows English.